Alabama Corn Mills Co. v. Mobile Docks Co.

• Decision Date: 18 January 1917
• Docket Number: 1 Div. 953
• Citation: 200 Ala. 126,75 So. 574
• Parties: ALABAMA CORN MILLS CO. v. MOBILE DOCKS CO.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

75 So. 574

200 Ala. 126

ALABAMA CORN MILLS CO. v. MOBILE DOCKS CO.

1 Div. 953

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 18, 1917

Rehearing Denied May 24, 1917

Appeal from Chancery Court, Mobile County; Thomas H. Smith Chancellor.

Suit between the Alabama Corn Mills Company and the Mobile Docks Company. From the decree the Alabama Corn Mills Company appeals. Affirmed.

Stevens McCorvey & McLeod, of Mobile, for appellant.

S.R Prince and Carl Fox, both of Mobile, for appellee.

McCLELLAN J.

On March 16, 1898, Stewart and others conveyed to Duncan certain lands attingent to and lying east of One Mile creek, in Mobile. In this conveyance the following additional terms of description appear:

"Also that certain strip of land one hundred feet wide, commencing at a point on the north side of Marion street, one hundred feet west of the east line of square number three hundred and seventy-two of the Orange Grove tract; thence running in a southeastwardly direction, with even width of one hundred feet, through the northeast corner of square number three hundred and sixty-five of the Orange Grove tract; and thence eastwardly along the margin of One Mile creek until the north line of this strip reaches a point one hundred feet south of the north line of the property first above described if the same were extended across the creek; the object of conveying this last-described piece being to give track facilities in to and from the property herein first conveyed."

On May 1, 1898, Duncan conveyed this same property, employing the same terms of description, to the Mobile Docks Company, the appellee.

On January 9, 1907, Stewart and others conveyed to the Alabama Corn Mills Company (appellant) lands lying west of One Mile creek, including square numbered 365, to which particular reference was made in the above-quoted terms from the deed of Stewart and others to Duncan. The deed from Stewart and others to the appellant contained the usual full covenants, but the covenant against incumbrances reads as follows:

"That the said property is free from all incumbrances, except it is subject to any right that we may have granted to William Butler Duncan by deed executed March 16, 1898, and recorded in Deed Book No. 84 N.S., pages 536 et seq."

The reference is to the conveyance we have quoted, in part, above.

This bill seeks the construction of the conveyances made March 16 and May 1, 1898, respectively, with particular reference to the provisions pertaining to a right of way 100 feet wide across square numbered 365 for the purpose of laying tracks and operating trains thereon, so as to connect the tracks of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company (the owner of the appellee corporation) west of square 365 and of One Mile creek with the property lying east of One Mile creek, which was conveyed by Stewart and others to Duncan, and by Duncan to the appellee, in the year 1898.

The court below entertained and gave effect to the conclusion that an easement or right of way for railroad purposes 100 feet in width over square 365, and not any definite part of that square, was vested through the conveyances of March and May, 1898. This conclusion was necessarily predicated of the view that the conveyances, in the respects quoted, were void for indefiniteness and uncertainty in describing a particular part of the soil embraced in square numbered 365. It is manifest upon a mere inspection of the quoted part of the conveyance of March and May, 1898, that no specific, definite part of square 365 was conveyed to Duncan or by Duncan to the appellee. It is void as a conveyance of any particular part of that square of a width of 100 feet or less. It is to be assumed, in view of the obvious uncertainty of the instruments in this regard, that the parties were, at the time the instruments were executed, equally aware that these deeds did not approximate an efficient description of any particular part of square 365; and hence that these conveyances did not transmit to the respective grantees any particular area, 100 feet in width, within the confines of square 365, whereon the grantees might lay the railroad tracks contemplated by the parties in order to afford railway access to the lands thereby conveyed, lying east or southeast of One Mile creek. In these circumstances, the question of the efficiency of the conveyances to effect the avowed purpose of the parties thereto to grant a right of way, an easement, 100 feet in width, over square 365, is to be determined by the terms employed by the parties to define and to describe that which, with reference to a right of way of a specified width, it was the intent to grant.

It is both the obligation and the office of the courts to ascertain and to effectuate the intent of the parties in the execution of conveyances, unless the intent thereby manifested is opposed to some rule of law; and in the performance of this function the whole instrument is to be taken into consideration. Lamar v. Minter, 13 Ala. 31, 35, 36; Dinkins v. Latham, 154 Ala....